Been working with this team for some time so I guess I have the permission to attest to everything @iamarkdev said and share an inside view on how this team operates.
In the past, I have built 2 major startups in the last 9 years and have invested in many high-quality teams in the last cycle, but this team is built differently - thoughts on the team and why I think we have a winning team to conquer the blockchain gaming world below -
1. Raw intelligence and proven operating experience - Every single team member on @hytopia and @HYCHAIN_GAMES are not just some of the smartest folks I have met in the space but they bring in years of proven operating experience across gaming, game engine development, infrastructure, and ecosystem development across both web2 and web3
2. Extremely first principle thinking and operating at a speed that justifies making lots of mistakes - very iterative feedback loops driven culture and zero tolerance for paralysis analysis - Plan -> execute -> fail -> learn -> repeat is the mantra. There’s a famous saying by @sama - being quick, decisive, and getting things done quickly correlate to a lot of successful founders and all of us in the team operate with the same principle.
3. Extremely lean and nimble team structure where most team members operate as generalists and wear multiple hats across the board - zero bureaucracy and no squatting on ideas for weeks - eg. we took a lot of really high-value decisions in the last 30 days across many verticals (past experiences, it would take months to take such decisions)
4. ArkDev leads by example and has utmost clarity in what he wants to achieve 5 years from now. He is also the most resilient founder I have met - he is very clear that he is playing the long game and he is in to win it. It was very evident from the time Minecraft banned NFT Worlds but being on the inside brought a lot of validation with his operating style - the team could have wrapped up, taken the funds, and sunsetted the business, but they took the harder route. Says a lot about @iamarkdev and @Temptranquil and I have the utmost respect for both.
5. Flat org structure, no reporting ladders - there's no place for middlemen - everyone on the team is both a thinker and a doer and most importantly maintains the highest levels of accountability to everyone else.
6. Not afraid of incumbents - The team knows we are working against a lot of headwinds and that it will be an uphill battle but every single person on the team still feels like they have a true calling to build the largest web3 gaming company and desperately want to champion this mission.
7. Growth growth growth - everyone on the team is laser-focused on growth and key metrics that drive them - there are a lot of key metrics that you will see growing exponentially within Hychain and Hytopia over the next few months namely new user growth, retention, new features shipped, new games in our pipeline, on-chain activity etc etc
8. The company runs like a professional sports team - there’s literally an Olympian-style work ethic on the team and literally everyone on the team is heavily focused on performance. Again, kudos to Arkdev and Max for making this the default DNA of the company.
9. High accountability and transparency to the community and very community-centric DNA - eg. most decisions are valued from the perspective of how the community will respond and how we can make it more welcoming to them. We deeply deeply care about the community and this probably is the single biggest criterion for the amazing and welcoming community members that Hytopia has nurtured over the last 2 years.
Okay, that’s all. Really happy that I get to build with such battle-scarred, amazing people but it's still a long uphill battle from here, and the journey has just begun.
P.S. If you want to join this rockstar team, we are hiring across multiple verticals for full-time positions at Hychain - biz dev, ecosystem support, marketing, social media, research, etc. More details on the openings to come in the next post but DM’s open if you want to send an open invitation for a role at @HYCHAIN_GAMES.
heads up folks @Cyb3rSquatt3rs, which is minting now, is a drainer
ty to the likes of @PocketUniverseZ and @_joinfire for alerting folks to scam transactions and keeping wallets safe